A Boost for Women Chefs

The search for gender equality pervades nearly every arena of life, and the food and restaurant industry is no different. Even in the foodie paradise of Louisville, men tend to dominate the sector, specifically in upper management, chef and ownership roles. Couple that with new attention to sexual harassment and assault incidents involving high-profile personalities from the food world and it becomes clear that something needs to be done to change the status quo.

And thus, the LEE Initiative (Let’s Empower Employment) was born.

In response to these troubling events Lindsey Ofcacek and Chef Edward Lee decided to take a positive step toward equalizing things in the food industry. Ofcacek, the manager of Lee’s Old Louisville– based restaurant 610 Magnolia, has spent years in the industry and knows firsthand the frustration of being a woman working in a restaurant.

“Back in November [2017], when a lot of negativity with women in our industry started breaking, we wondered: ‘What we could do that was positive? What can we do to help?’ she said. “For us, this is an industry that we both have poured our hearts into and believe in.”

And while their dream was lofty, they knew they had to keep their heads to the ground. “We know we can’t change systemic misogyny,” Ofcacek admits before defiantly adding: “But we can try and make a positive change. And so a mentor program was something that we thought could really make a difference.”

Once the two solidified the idea they began to scratch out the details. It would be a mentorship program for women in the food and restaurant industry of Kentucky. The idea is: What can potential female leaders in the food industry learn from other women who have already achieved that position? To start at a manageable scale, only five women would be chosen. The applicants all had to have lived in Kentucky for a year and worked in the industry for at least two. Lee and Ofcacek issued a one-month open call for applications in February and gave a selection committee two weeks to decide on the winners, announcing them at Louisville’s Fourth Street Live in March.

Each of the women chosen will spend a week in an “externship”: Each is paired with a female mentor- chef at restaurants from all over the country, where they will spend a week learning everything they can from these trailblazing predecessors.

“We wanted successful women who were leaders,” Ofcacek says of the chosen mentors. “Ones that had put policies into place to create a positive work culture. We wanted successful women in the industry to be able to go and learn from other women who have done it. These are all women who have done something amazing in the industry and for women in general.”

After a small dinner that included the chosen mentors, Ofcacek and Lee decided on the pairings: Stephanie Callahan was paired with Brooke Williamson; Stephanie Sharkey with Sarah Grueneberg; AuCo Lao with Katie Button; Nikkia Rhodes with Anne Quatrano; and Jen Rock with Jenn Louis.

Ofcacek’s concern for equality didn’t begin with the LEE Initiative. Both she and Lee have observed the lack of women in upper-level positions in the industry for years. She notes the obvious, yet little considered, fact that the restaurant business is the first job for a lot of young women.

“If your first experience in the workforce is in a restaurant and that restaurant is run by someone who thinks it’s OK to call you ‘Honey’ or to touch you or to sexually harass you or to keep you down because you’re a woman, what lasting effect is that having on you? For the rest of your life?” Ofcacek asks. “We wondered if this was a reason not as many women pursue management and ownership roles in restaurants, as in why would they want to stay here? But if this industry is going to thrive we need women in leadership roles.”

Lee concurs. “What’s important is that in the food industry we continue to look for places where there is inequality, where there’s a lack of diversity, and we try to combat that, to right that. So this is just one small effort in that.”

Although the program is named for Lee, who is a well-known chef throughout the culinary world, he has mostly taken a back seat with the initiative. He’s offered his services, his support and his long reach in the industry but has left management of the nonprofit to Ofcacek.

“Lindsey is the person driving the programming and all of the details,” Lee says. “Obviously, people know me so I can help spread the word. But really, it’s Lindsey. It’s her dream, her project. I want to make sure that she’s on the front line of all this.”

As of this writing, Jen Rock was the only LEE Initiative intern to have completed her externship, at Jenn Louis’s restaurant, Ray, in Portland, Oregon. Rock, a Louisville native who is chef de cuisine at the Gralehaus, says she “learned a great deal” from her time with Louis.

“My short-term goal, something that I focused on when I went on my mentorship with Louis, is observing and adopting a different management and leadership style and how she [Louis] organized and managed her kitchen,” Rock says. “I know I still have a lot of work to do, of course, and a lot to learn about cuisine and the execution of that. My goal is also to improve my approach to management and to be a strong leader. Which Louis definitely is.”

The LEE Initiative offers another perk: national exposure. Rock and her fellow chefs will attend the Southern Foodway Alliance’s 2018 Summer Symposium, held in Lexington, which will focus on the importance, origin and trends of regional and Appalachian cuisine.

After that the group will reconvene under the personal guidance of Lee at his restaurant, where they will plan and practice the menu they intend to prepare at the James Beard Foundation in New York this September. The nonprofit Beard Foundation is a culinary arts institution that Rock likens to the Golden Globes. They give out numerous awards in the food industry every year—everything from best restaurants to cookbooks to documentaries.

“It’s a huge honor to go and get to cook at the James Beard Foundation and be a part of that organization,” Rock says. “I think that is milestone accomplishment for many chefs, to be able to cook in that kitchen”

“It’s a really big deal,” Ofcacek echoes. “Pretty much every young chef dreams about cooking there. Part of the whole initiative is, at the end, they’re going to cook a five-course meal at the Beard House in front of the New York media using what they’ve learned. There are five women and five courses. They will each be responsible for their own course and they’ll learn to work together as a team and make a meal that, hopefully, reflects all that they’ve learned.”

Both the Southern Foodway Alliance and the James Beard House are “very well-known and important institutions,” Lee says. “All these things are designed to put these young chefs in front of the influential people in the food world so that these people can network and develop a base of people who are going to help them become leaders. Which is what the Initiative is all about.”

After the James Beard House dinner the five chefs will go on to replicate their meal for a fundraiser designed to help raise money for next year’s batch of LEE Initiative participants.

“We still want to keep it small and keep it in Kentucky,” Ofcacek says. “That’s very important to us. The idea behind it is that we want this program to be so successful [others] could easily mimic it in their state. I strongly believe that if there were a program like this in every state it would completely change the landscape of culinary profession in this country.”

As for the chefs who complete the program, what’s next is completely up to them. “A lot of these women have already made a successful impact on the industry but we wanted to help them get a leg up and make that next step,” says Ofcacek. But if any of them decide to take that next step, whether to head chef at a restaurant or to own their own or anything in between, the goal of the LEE Initiative is to see that they are have the resources to fulfill their vision.

“Mainly, we wanted to help build a community for these women. In the future when they go on to own their own restaurant and they sit down in a room of people and they need to negotiate a lease, find investors, set their policies and create their workplace culture, they’ll have an army of people behind them to help them. Whenever they’re ready, we want them to know that we’re here to support them.”

Lee agrees, acknowledging that while the LEE Initiative provides an opportunity, these up-and-coming chefs still have their work cut out for them.

“This program is meant to be a mentorship program and a leadership program. Obviously, we want these young chefs to become great leaders. Aside from that, everything is on them. You don’t teach leadership, you can only open doors.

Tyrel Kessinger is a freelance writer. He writes the “Sonic Breakdown” column for the LEO Weekly.